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Old 09-28-2015, 09:43 PM
ggibson511960 ggibson511960 is offline
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Join Date: Nov 2007
Location: Houston, Texas
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Default How Does it Happen?

I have only seen one badly clocked barrel in my years of fondling these wonderful revolvers. It was a M-14 in the early 70's that a store clerk showed me before he sent it back. It was grossly out of index, probably 10 degrees. I own a M-29 that is at first glance slightly off, but close inspection shows a front sight slightly bent, dropped perhaps. Both these are pre-Bangor Punta guns when QC mattered. It baffles me how one can get out the door in this condition and I would bet that only a very few do. The assembler only has to align the barrel ribs or lugs within a broad range of torques, then face off the barrel breach to get the cylinder gap correct. Not too big a trick if you have a few million trial runs to get dimensions and torque values. I've wondered if barrels ever un-wind. Somebody at S&W must have thought it could happen in the old days or they wouldn't have pinned the barrel, or maybe the pin allowed them to index the barrel within a wide range of torque values. Whatever the cause I'll bet it's a quick fix at the S&W shop with frame vises and barrel wrenches close at hand. If I had to send one back I would check cylinder gap before I let them "fix" it to make sure they did it right.
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